REAL-WORLD INSIGHTS

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“ARE YOU KIDDING ME??” I was so mad. This was the third agreement I had come to with this potential business partner in the last six months. Just when I thought we had an agreement, they would come back and change the terms. It was infuriating. At this point I really wanted to walk away but I couldn’t because this joint venture was strategically important for both organizations and the cost were far too high to walk away. However, I felt like they were exploiting that fact and I was becoming more and more emotional. The more emotional I got, the more irrational I became. I had to detach emotionally and find a way around or this deal was going to hell in a hand basket.

Well there are actually!
Negotiation involves cold logic, cutting through all the verbiage, careful and clear analysis of the volatile and unpredictable environment before coolly selecting the correct option.

I had a haircut today, and learnt something simple but useful. Chatting to the barber I asked if he had ever been to a particular local restaurant. Yes, he said, but it was about 5 years ago and it wasn’t very good. He had found a small piece of plastic in his mouth whilst eating his meal, and he was unimpressed with the response from the waiter. He explained.

We’ve all been trained to hide our emotions in a business environment—especially during negotiation. Keep your emotions out of negotiations or the other side may crush you, right? Not exactly, because you can’t negotiate effectively as a detached robot. So how do you find the happy medium?